


Dragons and Muscular Blonds

by Hildigardis



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Bucky and Clint have been friends 5ever, Bucky is a dragon tamer okay, Dragons, Just Supermuscles, M/M, Modern Fantasy AU, Multi, Natasha is a ballet teacher and a bouncer lbh, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, no superpowers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-09-11
Updated: 2016-11-29
Packaged: 2018-08-14 09:42:50
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,498
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8008570
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hildigardis/pseuds/Hildigardis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Legends speak of beings capable of controlling dragons. Belief whether these legends are true or not vary, but Clint Barton always believed them to be fairy tales. Now, in 2015, his housemate and best friend for life James Buchanan Barnes springs the fact that the legends of dragon tamers are very real. He proves it when he brings home a young dragonling, weak and sickly and trying to survive.</p><p>Enter exotic vet Steve Rogers, who only wants to help all the animals he can. He did not sign up for fantastical creatures, though.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Start

**Author's Note:**

  * For [r4dianteclipse](https://archiveofourown.org/users/r4dianteclipse/gifts).



> So I was talking to my fellow Bucky trash friend and mentioned my love of dragons and realized I needed a fic where Bucky is a dragon tamer. Instead of waiting years for someone to write it, I decided to write my first fic in five years.
> 
> Unbeta'd. Please feel free to improve upon this AU if you want. (And if you do, please send me the link or title and I'll read it and love it!)

In the days of old, it was said there were beings – humans – who could call forth dragons to do their bidding. A rare trait, they would only come up from a handful of families every few generations. It is said that all those who controlled dragons had two things in common, though: wisdom and purity in power – not purity in the sense of true good, but in doing what must be done for the least negative impact on the world.

At least, they would have those in common if they weren’t mere legend. This is modern day, the year 2015, in the good ol’ United States of America. Tony Stark is one of the richest men in the world, the Middle East is in turmoil, and dragons don’t exist outside of CGI and folklore.

It’s a late-June morning in Nashville, Tennessee and Clint Barton is cursing the day he decided to do outdoor archery camps for kids in the middle of summer. The news channel on the television had just stated that the day would have an expected high of 92 degrees. Grabbing more ice out of the freezer to put in the cooler for drinks, he made sure there was extra sunscreen packed (goodness knows parents always forget to send sunscreen on the first day of camp) before grabbing his keys and heading out the door, locking it behind him. Clint carefully tottered down the path towards the camp office, with cooler and bag in hand, then left the two items outside the entrance to the office before opening the door and walking into the wonderfully air conditioned room.

James “Bucky” Barnes looked up from his stack of papers as the archery instructor walked into their shared office. “Dude, it’s only seven-thirty and I’m already starting to sweat. Whose idea was it to move to this damn armpit, anyways?” Clint complained as he collapsed into his desk chair, head falling onto the tabletop. Bucky, in turn, flipped him off with a shiny metal hand, as it was in fact Clint’s idea to move to Nashville after leaving the circus.

_“It’s such a beautiful area!” Clint had said as they sat in a grungy diner, deciding where to settle. “And it’s metropolitan, big, but also feels like you’re in the middle of nowhere without having to go too far.”_

_Bucky grunted in response, mouth full of cheeseburger, while he pulled up information on the climate in central Tennessee, “It says here that the climate is fairly temperature, though humid. There’s a few weeks a year where it’s more extreme temperatures, but not bad.”_

_“Well, the prices aren’t bad, and I’m sure we can deal with the weather,” Clint decided, “let’s do it.” Bucky sighed and nodded his head, knowing that Clint was going to complain the first time it got too hot or cold._

Clint Barton had indeed complained the first time, and every time after that.

It was interesting, though, sharing the property they co-owned between their two careers, but it worked. As long as Clint kept his students’ arrows within the archery ranges, Bucky worked to keep his animals _away_ from the archery ranges. Rehabilitation would be set back by getting attacked by arrows, after all.

It was also interesting to see Bucky work with the rehabilitation animals. He was a tall, imposing man with a bionic arm and wild, shoulder-length hair; he’s even scared a few of Clint’s younger archery students when they first started. But when he would get a new animal in, wild or domesticated, scared and broken, his appearance didn’t seem to matter. If he were another man of similar stature, the animals would be frightened and uncooperative; with Bucky, it was almost like he spoke their language, or they were in a trance. It was an amazing event to watch unfold.

Clint had once decided to watch Bucky work with a rescued bait-dog from a dog-fighting ring. It had been picked up by a no-kill shelter that believed in the dog for some reason, but it had gone through six trainers already with no good results. As soon as the dog, a small pit bull, came out of the truck, shivering and whining, Bucky led her into a fenced enclosure a quarter-acre in size and let her loose. The person from the shelter dropping the dog off gave him a crazy look as they questioned his methods, letting an unpredictable dog off leash and without a muzzle. They were quickly shushed, however, as Bucky squatted inside the enclosure, a few feet from the gate, and let her sniff around. He did not pressure her into doing anything, but left his stance relaxed and quiet for ten minutes before crawling over to the gate and slowly exiting.

“What are you doing?” The shelter worker hissed, appalled at his tactics. “We aren’t paying you to just leave her alone in a dog run!” Deep breath. “The shelter needs to see progress within two weeks, or we take her to someone else and we make sure others know you don’t live up to your reputation.” The worker turned around and left before Bucky could get a response in edgewise, getting into the driver’s seat of the truck and starting it up before roaring out down the driveway, obviously ignoring the property’s requested five miles-per-hour speed limit.

When the shelter worker returned in two weeks to check on the dog (Bucky was honestly surprised there weren’t more frequent visits if they cherished their dogs so much), she was almost a completely new dog. Being dubbed Mila, as Bucky couldn’t continue working with a nameless dog, she now let herself be leashed and pet on the shoulder, as well as coming to the general location of Bucky when her name was called. Pleased with the outcome, the worker left with a promise to be back in two more weeks. At the end of those two weeks, Bucky let the shelter keep half of his pay (“I pretty much adopted her after those first two weeks, Clint”), and ended up adopting Mila. His reputation was intact (and boosted), and Clint was more than impressed with the talent of his friend.

 

* * *

 

 

Olympic Archer Clint Barton stumbled into the kitchen after a long day of teaching children how to not stab their eyes out with arrows, and to maybe send those same arrows kind of towards a designated target. It was literally easier when he was still living with the travelling circus. The circus was also much less deadly, apparently, as long as you weren’t a member of the Barnes family. He threw himself into a chair at the kitchen table, knocking over an empty glass left there this morning and barely managing to keep it from rolling off the table onto the ground.

A small hiss sounded at the clatter of the glass, but Clint originally paid it no mind. It wasn’t the first time that Bucky had brought a snake or lizard into the house. “Please tell me you’re making food for both of us.” It was muffled by the fact his face was pressed into the tabletop, but Bucky had had enough experience to decipher his housemate.

“Sorry, man. I only got out enough beef for the two of us.”

“But it _is_ just the two of us-“ Clint’s head lifted as he protested, but he was cut off as he saw what was draped over Bucky’s shoulder. He rubbed his eyes rapidly, wondering if he was experiencing extreme heat exhaustion and, thus, hallucinations. Because dragons _weren’t real_ , so why was there a dragon sitting on his housemate’s shoulder, huffing a small puff of fire in indignation. “What the FUCK is that and why is it on your shoulder?!”

The human-turned-dragon perch turned around, eyes wide. “I can explain.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! Sorry it's short, but if I don't start posting it now, it will never get posted.
> 
> (Following chapters will mostly be in Bucky's point of view, with some being in Steve's.)


	2. The Egg

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Hi, I’m James Buchanan Barnes and I’m an animal trainer and rehabilitator. I can also tame dragons. Please don’t tell anyone.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so sorry that this took so long, but shit hit the fan irl. :/ My winter break starts in a week and a half, though, and I plan to get more churned out over the holidays!

“Yeah, you **better** explain, Buck, and this better not be any wacky drugs again.”

Bucky ran his hand over his face, turning off the stove. Luckily the food was done. “That was one time, Clint, and they were painkillers because you had broken your femur.”

The archer leaned back in his chair, squinting at his roommate and unfortunate best friend. “Yeah, yeah, now explain.”

A sigh.

“Hi, I’m James Buchanan Barnes and I’m an animal trainer and rehabilitator. I can also tame dragons. Please don’t tell anyone.” As Bucky finished speaking, a small fireball flew out of the mouth of the dragon on his shoulder, displeased at being left out. “And this is Rheaghanes, a two year old spice dragon.”

Clint rubbed his temples, feeling the beginnings of a headache coming on. “How long has this been… A thing?”

“My whole life.”

Another sigh, from Clint this time.

“I’m going to just eat my leftover burrito and go to bed. Maybe this is all a dream and I’ll wake up in the morning to things being back to normal.” Clint's knees popped as he stood, grabbing his burrito out of the fridge and not even heating it up (the heathen) as he left to his bedroom.

Bucky sighed, turning back to the stove and dumping the ground beef over his taco salad, letting some gather on the side. Rheaghanes jumped onto the countertop, chowing down on his portion of the meat. This was going to be a long week.

 

* * *

 

 

When Clint had woken up the next morning, he expected one of two things: it to be Monday morning again and everything be normal, or to wake up to a dragon looming over his bed and waiting to devour him. Neither of those two happened, however, and he went about his day as normal. Well, as normal as one can be when constantly looking over their shoulder for some mythological creature to be there. Apparently dragons were real, so why couldn’t all the others be real, too? Clint would love to have a pet gryphon.

Hours later, he was walking through the woods with the kids, returning from one of the beginner archery ranges, when he heard a soft thud right in front of him. Stopping abruptly to not step on whatever had fallen, he found it was a large egg with a bumpy shell, slightly cracked. Clint stooped down to move the egg out of the way, but stopped when he felt warmth radiating from the shell. A large egg, bumpy, and radiating warmth.

“Come on, kids. We’re going to take a detour.” This had to go to Bucky.

“Where are we going?” asked a runny-nosed brunet of about 12.

Clint stumbled a bit as he tried to think up an answer. Thinking while holding an egg was not Clint’s best action. “Since you all did so well today and we finished a bit early, we’re going to see some of the animals my best friend takes care of!”

“Mr. Clint, sir, are you and your friend… Gays? Mommy said two men as handsome as you and Mr. Bucky must be gay to not be married yet.”

The egg almost actually fell this time.

“Not for each other.” The kids didn’t need to know Clint was like ninety-five perfect straight.

When the rowdy crowd got to the rescue side of the property, Bucky came out with a quizzical look on his face. “What are you-” he started to ask, cutting himself off when he saw the egg haphazardly cradled in his friend’s arms. “Right. I told you to bring the kids to play with the goats if they were good.”

The group was led to an enclosure, the one with the fully rehabilitated goats that were up for adoption. The kids were taught how to behave around the stubborn animals before being set loose. With the kids occupied, Clint handed the egg over to Bucky, who left the group to care for it.

 

* * *

 

Clint had barely turned on the tv and sat down on the couch with his tv dinner when Bucky barged into the room, blocking the tv to get his attention.

“Where did you get this egg?” Normally friendly, blue eyes were ice cold and focused, seeming to peer through into Clint’s mind.

“It fell right in front of me on the path back from beginner range three. I was just going to move it to the side so it didn’t get trampled until I felt the heat radiating from it and thought that maybe it was something you should handle.” Clint tried to crane his neck to the side to see around his housemate.  “Why?”

Bucky shifted to block Clint’s view again. “Are you positive? You didn’t see anything out of the ordinary? Hear anything unusual?”

A sigh before giving up on watching his show. “Yes, I’m positive. Why are you so interrogative?”

Bucky’s fists clenched before relaxing, as if acquiescing to telling the truth. “You somehow came across a lava dragon egg, and it’s about to hatch. The trauma it went through getting to this realm may make it sick beyond what I can handle.”

“So let’s get the help that we need. There must be a dragon doctor somewhere or something.”

“Clint, I’m ninety percent sure that you and I are the only ones over the age of ten who believe or know dragons exist. I’m pretty certain there’s no so-called dragon doctors.”

The archer shoved the last of his potatoes into his mouth. “So take it to a reptile vet or whatever and say it’s your exotic lizard from Cambodia or something.”

 

* * *

 

Dust puffed into the air as a tome was slammed shut. There really wasn’t much written on lava dragons, Bucky was finding out. An incredibly rare species, it took three hours for him to even figure out what type of egg it was, as lava dragon eggs had only been observed three times over the past five thousand years.

Here’s what he’s found out so far in the past seven hours of research and reading:

  1. They are largely considered a sub-species of earth and fire dragons. Some consider them their own full species, however, as they do not interbreed with other kinds of dragons often. The only other dragon they are known to breed with are sulfur dragons.
  2. Lava dragons are long-lived and capable of hibernating for hundreds of years. Neither of these facts is unusual from dragons.
  3. Unlike most fire dragons, they do not constantly generate and radiate heat. They instead maintain a cool temperature the majority of the time and typically only generate heat when using their lava.
  4. Not only do they spew or breathe lava, they can also generate it at will through touch. Lava dragons have been known to produce lava in times of emotional strain, particularly in response to stress or trauma.



Seven hours of study and this was all Bucky knew. The egg sat in an incubator specially crafted for dragon eggs, though still a touch too cool for a lava dragon egg. It was due to hatch in about four hours and Bucky knew nothing about how to raise a lava dragon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter isn't as long as I wanted still, but I want to get it posted as my finals start in a week and I'm about to get swamped in studying for those.
> 
> Please tell me what you think, and give me any suggestions you may have to improve. This is my first piece of writing that isn't an academic or research paper in about 5 years, so... Yeah.


End file.
